Northeast India; Day 13 - Mishmi Hills

  For the second day in a row, we awoke at 02:30 and headed up the mountains in Mishmi Hills to try to find the Sclaters Monal. But once again luck was not on our side, despite being joined by three additional Indian birders, there was no Monal to be seen or heard. The weather was at least not as perishingly cold, or so it seemed, so that was a silver lining. But by 06:00 it was already clear the bird was not coming, so we continued with the days birding.

  We continued to bird the upland area until our breakfast time. This worked out fantastically well and helped offset the disappointment of the early start and missing the Monal again. We had some excellent activity around a rubbish tip just down the road. It started with a Eurasian Jay, obviously a different subspecies to the one I am more familiar with in the UK, followed by the highlights of the day with a smashing male White-collared Blackbird and two Chestnut Thrushes, the latter a great bonus bird for our trip and the former just a complete stunner! We rounded it off with a small feeding flock of Dark-rumped Rosefinch.

  The morning then hit a slow stretch as we birded slightly further down to try and find the Black-throated Parrotbill, but alas we could not find any despite searching for two hours. This would not have been particularly galling were the general birding not so slow, with only a few species of note and activity generally very limited. The highlights were a showy Crimson-naped Woodpecker, a few different Fulvetta species, and a nice Eurasian Wren.

  We progressed slightly further down the mountain late morning, and continued exploring this lower area until the late afternoon. From here activity improved markedly and we had a few lively mixed species flocks featuring confiding Yellow-throated Fulvetta and a large group of Silver-eared Mesia. A trio of Blue-winged Minla were new for me, and it was nice to have other smart species such as Golden Babbler and another Red-faced Liocichla. However, as the afternoon progressed the birding got slower, so we continued down the mountain to the lowest elevations to try pick up our remaining targets at that altitude.

  It was already early evening when we reached this final elevation but managed to find the majority of our targets regardless, with a mixed species flock containing two of them; Pale-billed Parrotbill and Red-billed Scimitar-Babbler. The flock was mobile and difficult to predict, but at least both of these targets I was able to get on to. Another species in the flock I managed to miss, and a couple of other targets we only heard, but it is a good omen for when we can commit more time there tomorrow. Otherwise, a Common Green Magpie that flew over was a standout species.

  The day was rounded off by a simply fantastic sunset over the Brahmaputra floodplain, with the Himalayas in the background! Tomorrow, we will go once again!